Blair told pressure US over Israel

British MPs are calling on Tony Blair to demand that America withdraw its funding for Israel.

01 Oct 2003 04:32 GMT

Blair once called Sharon a "man of peace"

The under-fire British prime minister has been told to cut his unstinting political support for the US administration until Israel fully withdraws from the occupied Palestinian territories.

Jeremy Corbyn MP claimed that the occupation was based upon the “ritual humiliation and denigration of a people”.

He added: “If that carries on then suicide bombers are the product of it and it’s up to us to do something about and it and make our government do something about it.”

“Negotiations must have explicitly as their aims … a viable Palestinian state based on the boundaries of 1967”

Tony Blair - Labour Party Conference 2002

Corbyn was speaking during a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference in Bournemouth.

Economic support

His comments came moments before the prime minister was due to deliver his own speech elsewhere in the south-coast town.

Corbyn said Mr Blair must put pressure on the US to withdraw its massive military and economic support for Israel.

His demands were backed-up by Richard Burden MP and a leading academic, Victoria Brittain.

The research associate at the London School of Economics said: “Permitting the occupation to last for 36-years is a national and international shame and we must not stand by as a new apartheid is built in the Middle East.”

She said his demands to Israel should include the removal of settlements and the release of all Palestinian prisoners.

Reluctant to criticise

Brittain stated: “He could radically change the terms of the debate from meaningless to meaningful.”

Both Blair and Straw have been reluctant to criticise Israel since the recent Iraq war.

But some people are doing their best to remind both men of comments they once made regarding the Middle East.

A card given out by campaigners at this week’s conference contains five Labour statements on Palestine.

It includes a comment Blair made at last year’s party conference.Then, the prime minister said: “Negotiations must have explicitly as their aims … a viable Palestinian state based on the boundaries of 1967.”